Simone Mark Schneider

Designer and conceptual artist

London, UK

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«The first time I entered the world of design was in 2013 when I started my BA in industrial product design at the Politecnico di Milano. I remember perfectly on the first day of university our professor of technical drawing told us: “If you have chosen this school  because you love art you have to know that you were totally wrong, design is born when art dies.” I will never forget this sentence, not because I thought of going to study art or because I was an art geek, but because at that moment some fixed certainties I had in my mind collapsed in front of my eyes. I then asked to myself “Could a single-piece Ferrari concept car be considered art even if it has been created in a factory? Could a projection mapping on a building be considered a piece of art even if it was created by cold codes without a soul? I spent years trying to find a meeting point between design and art. Humans, even unconsciously, still need to be surrounded by art, a designer must be able to make them find it in everyday life.»

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Simone was born on Lake Maggiore, a melting point between Italian, Swiss and German cultures. During his youth he moved to Milan, a city whose history and culture always inspired him and his work. Driven by a strong passion for Milan’s industrial design history and aesthetic, he pursued his BA in Product Design at the Politecnico di Milano University. While at university, he worked as a set designer in the fashion industry. During this time, he found that working on the interaction people had with an installation truly inspired him. Upon his graduation, he lived in Sydney and Madrid before assuming a position as a set stylist and interior designer for B&B Italia in London.

During the global lockdown, Simone took the time to focus on his personal creative projects. In particular, he started ‘The Plastic Bag Project’ which sought to turn the plastic bag into a trendy luxury product thereby encouraging its reuse. Toying with the idea of the plastic bag as a status symbol, he merged the aesthetic of mass consumer brands and luxury fashion labels. The raw materials for the project were plastic bags found in our own households, while the designs were illustrated freehand. You can learn more about ‘The Plastic Project’ through his interview with Wherefrom here.